Tofugu’s Wanikani SRS system has recently become extremely popular for leaning kanji, but is the subscription pricing actually worth it?
Overall, Wanikani is a fun and engaging way to learn kanji. The mnemonics are funny and the review system is useful. It really shines in the ability to have userscripts to customise your learning experience. The pricing is via subscription and the SRS review times are strictly enforced so it’s not ideal for those who want to blast through kanji in a couple of months.
While it looks ideal on face value, it’s quite a commitment when trying to allocate your Japanese budget and time so let’s find out if it’s really worth it.
Wanikani for kanji – the basics
The Wanikani crabgator mascot is an example of the kind of mnemonics they feature.
Covers: Kanji, radicals, vocabulary.
Design: Nice clean design. Radicals/Kanji/Vocab are colour coded . Mobile version could be easier to use.
Learning style: Broken into 60 levels with radicals/kanji/vocab in each. Learn via reading mnemonics then review at SRS intervals via text input.
Mnemonics included: Yes.
Good: Great mnemonics, customisable via userscript, very active community, huge amount of content.
Bad: Subscription pricing, no official app, mixing in vocab means longer to learn the radicals and kanji.
Price: First 3 levels are free, after that it’s US$9p/m, $89p/y, $299 lifetime.
For reference, I’m currently on a yearly subscription up to Level 12.
What will Wanikani teach you?
Wanikani is a web based SRS system with a focus on mnemonic learning. The system aims to teach 2000+ kanji, 6000+ vocabulary words using those kanji and radicals on top of that. This provides a good foundation of kanji for reading and use with other systems for learning grammar etc.
Radicals
Radicals are kind of like the building blocks that make up kanji. They are smaller, simpler characters that are put together to make full kanji. By learning radicals you set yourself up to be able to “read” kanji easier as you can use context of the radicals to know the meaning or sound of the kanji. The radicals also help with mnemonics because they are often used in the stories.
Kanji
Kanji known at the various levels from WKStats
The kanji covered by Wanikani is not necessarily the the core 2000, Jouyou or JLPT list. While there is a lot of cross over, according to WKstats if you complete Wanikani you will only know 91.90% of Jouyou, 88.20% of JLPT N1, or 80.04% of the most frequently used kanji in newspapers. The included kanji is still a hell of a lot of the way there but just keep the content in mind if you are aiming for a specific standard.
Vocabulary
There are around 6000 vocabulary items included in Wanikani and while that seems like it would be all you need, the items included are only those that are relevant to the kanji you’re learning. The vocabulary is there to supplement and re-enforce the kanji rather than as a comprehensive list. The inclusion of vocab here is fantastic as a learning tool but you will also need to supplement with other resources for a full learning experience.
What Wanikani won’t teach you
Wanikani is certainly not a complete Japanese learning solution. It will not teach you grammar, how to speak, listen or a lot of non-kanji vocabulary you need. It cannot be used alone to learn Japanese, you will need to use it in conjunction with other learning systems to understand what to do with the vocabulary and kanji you have learned here.
That said, it’s a fantastic base to start with especially if you’re doing self study as it’s structured and the content is good.
How is Wanikani to use?
The Wanikani dashboard is clean and simple to see at a glance how far you’ve come.
The first 3 levels of Wanikani are free and there is no time limit so you can trial at your own pace. Learning is done online via the website. Currently there is no official app which is a pretty big downside to me as I like to revise on the go. The unofficial apps are clunky and don’t have great designs. The website has mobile versions but they are a bit awkward to use so desktop has been the easiest for me. Desktop also has the added benefit of being able to install userscripts which can customise your learning experience. Desktop and mobile versions all require an internet connection.
The basic concept is that via spaced repetition, each item you learn progresses through various levels (Apprentice, Guru, Master, Enlightened) until you know it well enough that it becomes “Burned”. After an item is Burned, it’s no longer shown because you are deemed to have successfully learned it. Burning an item takes several months and until you start burning things, the revision work load can get quite high.
Dashboard
The basic dashboard is set out so you can see how many lessons and reviews you have and how many items per level.
Lessons
Each level is broken into 2 sets of lessons that you must revise before moving forward. There are around 140 items per level. New lessons become available when you have successfully moved enough radicals and kanji to the “Guru” stage. During the lessons you are shown the character, mnemonic, meaning, readings, pronunciation, and context sentences. You can complete 5 lessons before
A lesson example for a vocabulary word.
you must review the items and get both the meaning and reading correct before moving on to the next set of 5. Completed items are moved to your revision queue.
Revisions
Once an item reaches it’s SRS period, it’s moved into your Revision queue. During revisions you type in the meaning or reading (in hiragana) of the item shown. Correct answers move the item to a higher tier, incorrect answers move it lower. If you get an item incorrect then you can view the meaning and it’s moved randomly into the revision queue again. Wanikani is a fairly basic SRS in this sense and it forces you to stick to the timeline by not allowing early revisions. Once you finish your day’s revisions, that’s it.
How long does it take to complete Wanikani?
Each level can be completed in just over a week IF you revise at exactly the correct time. This is fairly difficult so I average around 11 days per level. If you were to take 11 days per level it would take 660 days to complete 60 levels plus then the time on top to burn every item. Working quickly, people estimate around a year and a half to complete the levels with additional time to burn items after.
Wtf are Userscripts?
An example of a userscript that shows a heatmap of my reviews over time.
Userscripts are custom browser add-ons that can completely change your experience with Wanikani. To use them, you install a Chrome or Firefox add-on and then each userscript individually.
One of the most popular scripts adds the ability to change the order of revisions (radicals and kanji first, meanings then readings). This can be great if you want to level up quickly as you only need to get radicals and kanji to Guru before the next lessons are available. The downside is that it can cause a huge build up of vocabulary reviews.
Another script gives you the ability to undo wrong answers and have another try without effecting your score. This is great for typos but can certainly give you a little too much power to cheat and not actually learn anything… use with caution!
Other scripts give additional stats and features such as showing which reviews are coming up in the next hour etc. It’s hard to judge basic Wanikani fairly because I use a lot of these scripts now and without them it’s a lot less fun to use.
What level of Japanese do I need to use Wanikani?
Before starting Wanikani, you should have a basic understanding of Hiragana and Katakana. Hiragana is used for typed in answers as well as pronunciation and in some mnemonics. Completing reviews or lessons will be very slow and difficult if you don’t have the ability to read hiragana quickly.
If you would like to brush up on hiragana or katakana, check out my previous articles.
Are Wanikani’s mnemonics any good for learning Japanese?
The mnemonics in the course range from great to average, leaning on the side of great. A lot of them are silly, some are weird, some violent and some involve references you might want to look up to fully understand. Those factors make them quite memorable and so it’s easy to get a good learning rhythm down. Many of the mnemonics also include recurring characters. For example the founder’s name is Koichi so all of the kanji with a pronunciation of “kou” have mnemonics that involve Koichi doing things. I found this really useful to link readings together in my mind.
That said, some people prefer mnemonics that are REALLY crazy because they stick well, if that’s you then this is probably not the right program.
Is Wanikani fun to use?
Yes… and then no… and then yes again and repeat. At the beginning, there are only a few reviews per day and building up it moves at a fast pace. When you get further into the course, it can get extremely tedious. By level 10 I was averaging around 130 reviews per day plus lessons on top. At this point I still hadn’t burned any items so the reviews were just going up and up. That isn’t Wanikani’s fault, it’s the flaw of all SRS systems: the more items you have, the more revisions you have.
I didn’t feel like I was making progress so when I finished level 10 I took an extended break. While it felt good at the time, I was burned out and the time off set me back further from my goals. Wanikani does warn you about this because their levels are named 1-10 (Pleasant), 11-20 (Painful), 21-30 (Death), 31-40 (Hell), 41-50 (Paradise) and 51-60 (Reality).
Now that I’m back into it, it’s started to be a bit more fun. Really, I don’t think kanji is ever going to be FUN. It’s something you kind of just have to get through? Wanikani is the only kanji system that I’ve wanted to come back to which is a big compliment to them.
You can read about how I came back and my tips for dealing with burn out here.
Is Wanikani useful for self study?
Another example of information included for each item and mnemonics
Self studying kanji can be quite difficult as it’s hard to know where to start and what order to tackle things in. Wanikani guides you and provides a great system for re-enforcing kanji with vocabulary.
The system is really structured which is ideal for people learning on their own. So long as you’re committed and able to push through the more repetitive revisions you will do very well. With the revision timing being enforced, this system is ideal for people who tend to try to learn EVERYTHING at once and then retain nothing.
If you find yourself struggling then definitely check out the forums too, they are very active and a great place to find people to practice (or commiserate) with.
The best parts of Wanikani
- Engaging, funny mnemonics.
- Slower pace forces you to learn and retain information rather than overwork.
- Userscripts give you a lot of options to customise your learning experience.
- Pause feature for extended breaks.
- Extremely active forum community.
- Updated and supported regularly.
Where does Wanikani need improvement?
- The mobile versions of the site are a bit meh. Keyboard input on iPhone is annoying as the keyboard pops up and down making revisions slow.
- Can’t add your own items to learn.
- Pricey when there are similar free systems available.
- Slower pace means longer monthly/yearly fees unless you opt for the lifetime membership.
Is Wanikani worth the money?
Wanikani is definitely a great app for learning and retaining kanji. While it is a basic SRS system, what sets it apart is the cleanly designed package that provides an exact road map for completing a large number of kanji.
That said, this is not a stand alone all-in-one Japanese course. You can have great success using Wanikani as the kanji section of a larger Japanese study plan but you still need to include other methods for grammar, speaking and vocabulary.
Overall, I think Wanikani is worth the subscription fee because it’s an easy to use system with good mnemonics. Kanji is a massive part of Japanese so it’s important to find a system that motivates you to keep going. I recommend trying the first 3 levels free to see if it clicks for you!
If you want to start learning your grammar before you attempt kanji check out my review on Mirai Japanese.
